The nice thing about Ventoy—and I didn’t fully appreciate this until I used it—is how simple it makes bootable USBs. You just drag and drop ISO images onto the drive, and it can hold as many as will fit. When you boot from the Ventoy USB, you just pick the image you want to install or run—no re-flashing, no fuss.
It’s honestly wild how convenient it is. Ventoy was the only method that worked for me when I needed to install Windows alongside an existing Linux setup for dual-booting. Everything else I tried failed, but Ventoy handled it perfectly.
I would love it if it worked well, but it's been really flaky for me. Maybe half the ISOs work, the rest get various errors on boot and fail. These are Linux ISOS, too, which I would have expected to work.
Last week I tried to make a bootable usb with windows 11. I tried using dd on macos, and that seemed to work, but the windows installer errored about "not finding drivers for the hdd". This threw me off because I thought something was wrong with the nvme.
Turns out you can't just dd a windows iso onto a usb drive.
You have to format it to fat32, then manually copy all the files. However there is one big installer file which is above 4gb, so you have to get some tool (also provided by Microsoft) to split the file into multiple files less than 4gb. The windows installer will recognize the split files and use those instead.
It's beyond me why the official windows iso just doesn't have this by default...
I am actually happy reading that though. As in it's literally the authors of the tool stating "hey we have a lot of binary blob drivers, what can we do to replace these?". He then audits them and links to build instructions.
As in yeah there's precompiled binaries in this. But it's audited and each binary itself has a link to build instructions. What they are not doing is actually building everything from scratch in their build process. Ok that's a pain to do and i get it. But... i don't see anyone slipping in an unaccounted for binary here right? If every binary itself has a "here's how to build this from scratch" documentation and source it seems ok to me.
And crucially, since each blob is from an open source project with build instructions, it seems like you can build Ventoy completely from source if you really want.
I don't see the problem with grabbing binary blobs from other trusted projects. Isn't it sufficient just to be able to prove the hashes match what you'd get directly from the origin? If you got your blob from (say) Debian, and their blobs were backdoored, the world has... much bigger problems to worry about. Feels like trying to verify that your pharmacy is making your medication from scratch, lest their supplier had contaminated it.
Both of those write a single ISO to your USB stick, while Ventoy allows you to store numerous ISOs in a folder on the stick and choose which to use at runtime. Also, you can store other files like normal with the remaining space on your stick.
Rufus and BalenaEtcher are both programs for flashing an image to a disk. Ventoy is flashed onto the disk itself (into a small EFI partition), then the rest of the disk is just a regular file system, where you drag and drop a group of ISOs, then pick between them on boot.
Those let you write one image to a USB stick. With Ventoy you write the bootable part once, and plop as many ISOs on there as you want. You get one bootable device where you can select from a list of ISOs.
I was going to ask how this would be better than any of the other options out there (like dd, the RPi imager and similar) but after seeing the README I consider this the superior alternative because you don't have to reflash the USB stick over and over again.
It supports multiple images at the same time, unlike the other solutions where one image take over the whole USB stick.
I really like the idea of this, but I've run into several installers which are just incompatible with it. I don't remember which ones, unfortunately, but they just didn't deal with it well.
If you have secureboot enabled and in Windows friendly mode, you can get validation failures with Ventoy until you either turn off secureboot, register the Ventoy MOK key, or change your secureboot setting to Generic OS (or whatever).
Kind of a pain, I think any machine that's had windows on it will get this setting enabled.
I've seen an installer get confused by the presence of an EFI partition on the stick, and not correctly create one on the target drive. There are probably ways to get around that, but I just made a separate USB stick for the installer (I had a spare stick floating around, and the tools handy (including on at least one of the live CDs on the ventoy stick)) and retried that way, which was probably faster than researching another method.
Agreed, I've run into just enough installers that don't work with Ventoy where I've just defaulted back to using etcher when I need access. The 5 minutes wait is worth it over the frustration of booting into Ventoy and finding it doesn't work with the ISO I'm trying to use.
Agreed. I have also found that some (dirt cheap) USB drives are incompatible with Ventoy entirely, being that it does not format the drive properly. I can drop ISOs all I like, but if they don't boot once I select them... Unfortunately I have resorted to using my trusty "pile o' flash drives" I've had for a decade.
Ventoy is great, but what I really miss is DriveDroid from the good old days. It still exists, but it's not quite as reliable on modern Android as it was on rooted Cyanogenmod back in the day and the distro download links have rotten away.
For those not familiar with it, it turns your Android phone into a USB DVD drive, meaning not only can you just download and host any distro with a few taps, you also don't need any hybrid ISOs or anything like that, the computer sees a real DVD so even old or weird machines accept it.
I've been using an IODD 2531 enclosure for many years now, and it's doing pretty much exactly that. It works with any ISO I throw at it and has no issues with Secure Boot. It’s also platform-agnostic as it acts as a USB optical disk drive.
There are some shortcomings, like a bug where it doesn't remember the last selected ISO if its filename is too long, files also need to be fully sequential. These might be fixed in their newer models (the 2531 is fairly old).
One nice thing about Ventoy is that you can still use the USB stick as a regular drive for other files — it doesn’t interfere with the ISOs you can boot from
Ventoy is cool and I've used it to boot many different operating systems. The one OS that I've had issues with is FreeDOS. Ventoy will boot it, but I've been unable to access any media on the target system. I'd like to be able to access a separate USB drive, or a hard disk. Maybe there's some trick to doing this that I'm unaware of...
FWIW, the last time I tried ventoy (early 2025) some ISOs would screw up the USB stick if you tried to boot them (and by that I mean the USB stick would no longer boot anything).
I learned about the tool very late. I wish I had known the existence of this tool earlier. I carry a USB stick with Ventoy, which includes 2-3 ISOs. It's a lifesaver.
Is it possible to boot a full windows install from this (probably using a VHD image)? I know it would be slow but it would be nice to have something with all my utilities.
You don't have to store the vhd file on the ventoy device. You can keep it on an internal partition and boot from that. After that, the ventoy drive doesn't have to stay plugged in
Ventoy is a lifesaver. I dropped a 2TB NVMe drive into a USB-C enclosure and put it on there, along with all the OS installers, distros, and test utilities I commonly use. Probably used it a few dozen times since then and it's well and truly paid for itself!
In perfect world, Microsoft would help to create this tool.
Nope, they don't have time for this. Too much work om security through obscurity, making crap SW which eats RAM like hamburgers and disabling local accounts...
I think that’s a really unfair portrayal of Microsoft’s product management. They spend a lot of time— even more than on some of the things you listed — creating GUI frameworks to ignore, injecting creepy analytics for their war on privacy, obfuscating those analytics and stymieing users efforts to avoid them, and figuring out terrifying new definitions for the word experience.
I swear the most recommended way of creating a bootable Windows USB on Linux changes every year, and usually doesn't work. I keep an old Windows laptop just so I can create bootable Windows usbs, whenever needed.
Making custom Windows install media is insanely painful, even from Windows. I went through the process of creating non-interactive install media for Windows once, and was astonished at how awful it is compared to building custom Linux live media. (Not least of all because of the churn in the XML you have to maintain that basically represents clicking through all the installer menus.)
It depends on what customizations you'd like to use.
I've also had a very hard time creating an automated install media for an appliance for windows iot... Worst was the (LLM generated?) powershell scripts in the documentation that didn't work at all.
Stretching your hate for the company a bit too far, don't you think? I mean all the cool kids do it, but you can't blame them for not having done this.
The nice thing about Ventoy—and I didn’t fully appreciate this until I used it—is how simple it makes bootable USBs. You just drag and drop ISO images onto the drive, and it can hold as many as will fit. When you boot from the Ventoy USB, you just pick the image you want to install or run—no re-flashing, no fuss.
It’s honestly wild how convenient it is. Ventoy was the only method that worked for me when I needed to install Windows alongside an existing Linux setup for dual-booting. Everything else I tried failed, but Ventoy handled it perfectly.
I would love it if it worked well, but it's been really flaky for me. Maybe half the ISOs work, the rest get various errors on boot and fail. These are Linux ISOS, too, which I would have expected to work.
Am I doing something wrong?
It's truly special. I haven't seen that before. It doesn't work always, with all OS' though, but when it does - it's great.
Notably Ventoy doesn't work with some Windows install ISOs.
Never had this issue.
Tested isos: Windows 10 x64 (Pro, LTSC), Windows 11 (Pro, LTSC). I've installed windows on hundreds of computers with Ventoy and it never failed me.
Any specifics on which windows install ISOs don't work? That way I'll know which ones will need a dedicated USB stick.
Last week I tried to make a bootable usb with windows 11. I tried using dd on macos, and that seemed to work, but the windows installer errored about "not finding drivers for the hdd". This threw me off because I thought something was wrong with the nvme.
Turns out you can't just dd a windows iso onto a usb drive.
You have to format it to fat32, then manually copy all the files. However there is one big installer file which is above 4gb, so you have to get some tool (also provided by Microsoft) to split the file into multiple files less than 4gb. The windows installer will recognize the split files and use those instead.
It's beyond me why the official windows iso just doesn't have this by default...
The lot of (partially scary) binary blobs is still an unsolved issue: https://github.com/ventoy/Ventoy/issues/3224
I am actually happy reading that though. As in it's literally the authors of the tool stating "hey we have a lot of binary blob drivers, what can we do to replace these?". He then audits them and links to build instructions.
As in yeah there's precompiled binaries in this. But it's audited and each binary itself has a link to build instructions. What they are not doing is actually building everything from scratch in their build process. Ok that's a pain to do and i get it. But... i don't see anyone slipping in an unaccounted for binary here right? If every binary itself has a "here's how to build this from scratch" documentation and source it seems ok to me.
And crucially, since each blob is from an open source project with build instructions, it seems like you can build Ventoy completely from source if you really want.
An alternative was offered here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41959908
https://github.com/thias/glim
does not support Windows
https://github.com/eugenesan/glim
If anyone is wondering, then there are Ventoy alternatives like IODD [0], but they are not perfect. Usable, but annoying in some aspects.
[0]: https://ounapuu.ee/posts/2025/02/14/iodd-st400-review/
I don't see the problem with grabbing binary blobs from other trusted projects. Isn't it sufficient just to be able to prove the hashes match what you'd get directly from the origin? If you got your blob from (say) Debian, and their blobs were backdoored, the world has... much bigger problems to worry about. Feels like trying to verify that your pharmacy is making your medication from scratch, lest their supplier had contaminated it.
Related. Others?
About the BLOBs in Ventoy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44810281 - Aug 2025 (57 comments)
Ventoy Is Saving Me Time, Money, and USB Sticks - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43933664 - May 2025 (2 comments)
iVentoy installing unsafe Windows Kernel drivers? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43909824 - May 2025 (8 comments)
Ventoy: Remove BLOBs from the Source Tree - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40689629 - June 2024 (49 comments)
Ventoy – Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40619822 - June 2024 (19 comments)
Ventoy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38672112 - Dec 2023 (111 comments)
Ventoy: A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36055765 - May 2023 (1 comment)
Ventoy, ISO USB Solution 10/10 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32901483 - Sept 2022 (4 comments)
A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28889392 - Oct 2021 (47 comments)
Ventoy makes making bootable USB drives easy - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24273289 - Aug 2020 (11 comments)
Ventoy: A new bootable USB solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24241485 - Aug 2020 (106 comments)
Ventoy – A New Bootable USB Solution - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23394714 - June 2020 (6 comments)
Ventoy: Boot different ISO files from a USB stick - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23060019 - May 2020 (1 comment)
Love Ventoy! I never have to flash my USBs anymore. Just keep dropping those ISO files in there. Highly recommended.
Same here. You can drop as many ISO files as you want and select during boot...
How does this differ from Rufus [0] or Balena Etcher [1]? [0] https://rufus.ie/en/ [1] https://etcher.balena.io/
Both of those write a single ISO to your USB stick, while Ventoy allows you to store numerous ISOs in a folder on the stick and choose which to use at runtime. Also, you can store other files like normal with the remaining space on your stick.
Unlike Balena Etcher, Ventoy is not a bloated Electron app that sends telemetry from your computer: https://github.com/balena-io/etcher/issues/3784
Rufus and BalenaEtcher are both programs for flashing an image to a disk. Ventoy is flashed onto the disk itself (into a small EFI partition), then the rest of the disk is just a regular file system, where you drag and drop a group of ISOs, then pick between them on boot.
Those let you write one image to a USB stick. With Ventoy you write the bootable part once, and plop as many ISOs on there as you want. You get one bootable device where you can select from a list of ISOs.
I was going to ask how this would be better than any of the other options out there (like dd, the RPi imager and similar) but after seeing the README I consider this the superior alternative because you don't have to reflash the USB stick over and over again.
It supports multiple images at the same time, unlike the other solutions where one image take over the whole USB stick.
Love it.
Ventoy wouldn't work for a rpi though would it?
I really like the idea of this, but I've run into several installers which are just incompatible with it. I don't remember which ones, unfortunately, but they just didn't deal with it well.
If you have secureboot enabled and in Windows friendly mode, you can get validation failures with Ventoy until you either turn off secureboot, register the Ventoy MOK key, or change your secureboot setting to Generic OS (or whatever).
Kind of a pain, I think any machine that's had windows on it will get this setting enabled.
I've seen an installer get confused by the presence of an EFI partition on the stick, and not correctly create one on the target drive. There are probably ways to get around that, but I just made a separate USB stick for the installer (I had a spare stick floating around, and the tools handy (including on at least one of the live CDs on the ventoy stick)) and retried that way, which was probably faster than researching another method.
Agreed, I've run into just enough installers that don't work with Ventoy where I've just defaulted back to using etcher when I need access. The 5 minutes wait is worth it over the frustration of booting into Ventoy and finding it doesn't work with the ISO I'm trying to use.
Agreed. I have also found that some (dirt cheap) USB drives are incompatible with Ventoy entirely, being that it does not format the drive properly. I can drop ISOs all I like, but if they don't boot once I select them... Unfortunately I have resorted to using my trusty "pile o' flash drives" I've had for a decade.
IME this can sometimes be resolved by selecting 'use grub2 mode' instead of allowing the ISO to boot normally.
Ventoy basically breaks openSUSE ISO's. Just mentioning that so maybe it'll show up more in searches.
First I've heard of it, I just installed an openSUSE variant through Ventoy a week or so ago.
Adding an official source: https://fosstodon.org/@opensuse/115451506225628859
It’s mostly obscure ISOs for e.g. ReactOS and KolibriOS that don’t work for me. But normal Linux- or Windows-based ISOs all boot fine.
I wish that I could remember which Linux distribution that balked at it. It wasn't an obscure one, though.
Ventoy is great, but what I really miss is DriveDroid from the good old days. It still exists, but it's not quite as reliable on modern Android as it was on rooted Cyanogenmod back in the day and the distro download links have rotten away.
For those not familiar with it, it turns your Android phone into a USB DVD drive, meaning not only can you just download and host any distro with a few taps, you also don't need any hybrid ISOs or anything like that, the computer sees a real DVD so even old or weird machines accept it.
I've been using an IODD 2531 enclosure for many years now, and it's doing pretty much exactly that. It works with any ISO I throw at it and has no issues with Secure Boot. It’s also platform-agnostic as it acts as a USB optical disk drive.
There are some shortcomings, like a bug where it doesn't remember the last selected ISO if its filename is too long, files also need to be fully sequential. These might be fixed in their newer models (the 2531 is fairly old).
Such a shame Google & Apple refuse to let us use our devices to their full potential.
Ventoy is great bc it just works. No BS, just drag and drop your isos and BOOM! Bootable usb with MULTIPLE isos. Really great software.
One nice thing about Ventoy is that you can still use the USB stick as a regular drive for other files — it doesn’t interfere with the ISOs you can boot from
Ventoy is cool and I've used it to boot many different operating systems. The one OS that I've had issues with is FreeDOS. Ventoy will boot it, but I've been unable to access any media on the target system. I'd like to be able to access a separate USB drive, or a hard disk. Maybe there's some trick to doing this that I'm unaware of...
FWIW, the last time I tried ventoy (early 2025) some ISOs would screw up the USB stick if you tried to boot them (and by that I mean the USB stick would no longer boot anything).
I learned about the tool very late. I wish I had known the existence of this tool earlier. I carry a USB stick with Ventoy, which includes 2-3 ISOs. It's a lifesaver.
Is it possible to boot a full windows install from this (probably using a VHD image)? I know it would be slow but it would be nice to have something with all my utilities.
You don't have to store the vhd file on the ventoy device. You can keep it on an internal partition and boot from that. After that, the ventoy drive doesn't have to stay plugged in
It can directly boot into any VHD image https://www.ventoy.net/en/plugin_vhdboot.html
Should be doable yes.
Ventoy is a lifesaver. I dropped a 2TB NVMe drive into a USB-C enclosure and put it on there, along with all the OS installers, distros, and test utilities I commonly use. Probably used it a few dozen times since then and it's well and truly paid for itself!
The only issue with Ventoy is it doesn't work with secure boot turned on.
Otherwise its excellent.
It does, but you need to enroll its MOK key. If that's acceptable for you, it'll work just fine.
It works as long as you okay with their key provisioning https://www.ventoy.net/en/doc_secure.html
This is real good also wfor installing win11, because it at least did the local user and requirements bypass patches last time i used it.
Honestly, an essential piece of kit. I've used it across a couple of different contexts & have only positive things to say about it.
I’ve apparently already starred the repository.
Ventoy rocks
In perfect world, Microsoft would help to create this tool.
Nope, they don't have time for this. Too much work om security through obscurity, making crap SW which eats RAM like hamburgers and disabling local accounts...
I think that’s a really unfair portrayal of Microsoft’s product management. They spend a lot of time— even more than on some of the things you listed — creating GUI frameworks to ignore, injecting creepy analytics for their war on privacy, obfuscating those analytics and stymieing users efforts to avoid them, and figuring out terrifying new definitions for the word experience.
Microsoft provides a tool called "Media Creation Tool" https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows11
But of course it’s highly simplified and designed solely for installing Windows.
For Windows and FROM Windows.
I swear the most recommended way of creating a bootable Windows USB on Linux changes every year, and usually doesn't work. I keep an old Windows laptop just so I can create bootable Windows usbs, whenever needed.
Making custom Windows install media is insanely painful, even from Windows. I went through the process of creating non-interactive install media for Windows once, and was astonished at how awful it is compared to building custom Linux live media. (Not least of all because of the churn in the XML you have to maintain that basically represents clicking through all the installer menus.)
WAIK? I created a customized Windows install image as a 19 year old intern and presented it to the rest of the IT team...
It depends on what customizations you'd like to use.
I've also had a very hard time creating an automated install media for an appliance for windows iot... Worst was the (LLM generated?) powershell scripts in the documentation that didn't work at all.
For as long as Windows has supported UEFI, you've just been able to copy the files from the ISO directly to a UEFI partition.
Also, adding Copilot to everything.
ramburgers are quite healthy, they've been shown to improve memory
Stretching your hate for the company a bit too far, don't you think? I mean all the cool kids do it, but you can't blame them for not having done this.